Schwab Retirement Accounts with Power of Attorney

wab49

I have power of attorney on my wife's retirement accounts and can access them on the Schwab Web page with my login. Before the recent changes in how Quicken is authorized to download information from Schwab, these accounts were all downloading to Quicken. Now, only my accounts are downloading. This is a problem since my wife and I track all our accounts in Quicken. Her accounts still download to Personal Capital using my login ID. This is not an issue regarding legalities of doing this. From what I have read, Quicken cannot handle two Schwab download files, so I have not tried setting up those accounts to download with her login ID. I would love to hear from Quicken that they are aware of this issue and have plans to remedy it.

Sherlock

My understanding is the account constraints are applied by Schwab - not Quicken.  I suggest you contact Schwab.

From https://www.quicken.com/support/errors-when-updating-or-adding-charles-schwab-accounts

mikey

Exactly. A problem created by Schwab with zero notice to Quicken direct connect users.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7902828/if-youre-not-able-to-download-certain-type-of-schwab-accounts

jldavid47

Yes, this is a new restriction from the Schwab side. (I talked to Schwab customer support who verified that). If you have limited POA then you cannot download into quicken using your ID and password even if you can access the account online and in StreetSmart Edge. If you have full POA you can. I have limited POA in my wife's IRA and full POA over my mother's account. After the change I was still able to download from my mother's account but not my wife's. The solution was to use the separate ID and password for my wife's account and once we set that up it worked. An alternate solution would be to change the limited POA to a full POA.

mikey

@jldavid47 are you maintaining 2 separate quicken files then as well? i thought @quicken alyssa (or another moderator) had posted somewhere that schwab is enforcing a 1 quicken file to 1 schwab user/password combination.

jldavid47

@mikey I have one file for my mother's finances and one file for ours. In our file I have one login for accounts where I have or share ownership and a different login for the account my wife owns. I am able to use two logins with the one file to do updates without any problem.

mikey

@jldavid47 interesting. to be honest, i took the single file/user limitation at face value.

"Quicken Alyssa Moderator mod
Another one of the restrictions for Schwab is one User ID. So one data file, one User ID, and specific account types."


did quicken and/or schwab support help you implement? or you just tried 2 separate IDs when reauthorizing and it worked? i definitely need a single quicken file as funds move between both types of accounts in my case.

jldavid47

@mikey I just tried it and it worked. When we were talking to Schwab the customer rep about my wife's login did not tell me it wouldn't work so I tried it. I set up her account on the Schwab side to accept Quicken download requests and put her login and password in on the Quicken side for that account. So far, no problem.

My wife is joint owner of one of the accounts that I am primary on. I'll bet if I tried to set up access from her ID to that account it would fail but since it works from my account I won't even try.

Quicken Sarah

mikey said:

@jldavid47 are you maintaining 2 separate quicken files then as well? i thought @quicken alyssa (or another moderator) had posted somewhere that schwab is enforcing a 1 quicken file to 1 schwab user/password combination.

Hello @mikey

I just wanted to take a moment and provide a little clarity around this question.  The limit imposed by Schwab is that accounts may only be authorized for one data file.

If you have multiple usernames with Schwab they can all be connected in the single data file, but you cannot then authorize that same username in a different data file.

Hope this helps!

Sarah

BigBill

Schwab recently created a change that required account holders to specify which accounts they are authorizing third-party access. I was still able to see all the accounts I monitor in Schwab on their web page, but I could no longer download Schwab transactions into Quicken. Before the recent Schwab change, I could download several of my and my wife’s Schwab accounts transactions into corresponding accounts in Quicken. I also had many Schwab accounts tracked in Quicken where I was “limited power of attorney”, meaning I could do most things in Schwab with those accounts but could not withdraw funds/assets, change beneficiaries, etc. The accounts that were mine and the ones that I had “full power of attorney” authority I was able to reauthorize and enable future downloads to Quicken into their corresponding accounts.

When you update Quicken, you may get an error message saying you need to reauthorize your connection to Schwab. If you look to the right of the error message and do not see a “reauthorize” button but only 3 dots (…), you need to change the font size in Quicken. In Quicken, go to “view” and uncheck “use large fonts” option. Your screen should soon refresh to tiny print and you should then see the “reauthorize button” instead of the 3 dots. Click “reauthorize” and the screen takes you to Schwab. Once in Schwab, you will be given options to allow 3rd party access to any or all your accounts plus the ones you have full power of attorney. You will also the option to make this the default option for all new accounts. You will not have this option to reauthorize the accounts where you have “limited power of attorney”.

To set up Quicken transaction download where you do not have full control or full power of attorney, you need to contact the person who does and have them set up third-party access in their Schwab account. If they are downloading to Quicken, they will initially get an error message and a chance to reauthorize in Schwab. If they are not using Quicken, they can sign into their Schwab account online. Select “Service”, then select “Security Center.” Scroll to the bottom of the page for “Third-Party Access to Account Information.” Under “Quicken and TurboTax Desktop,” click “Enable Third-Party Access.” After that, go to the very bottom of the Security Center page, click on “Quicken” and you will see a list of all your brokerage accounts you have granted third-party access.

When THEY have done that, YOU can now go to Quicken. Under “Tools,” select “Add Account.” Go through the steps to add a new Schwab account in Quicken. You will need the account number plus the User ID and Password the owner of the account uses to set it up (make sure you save it to your Quicken vault for future downloads). Eventually, the Quicken process will have a screen allowing you to link the new account to the one you had been using in Quicken.

I had read a posting saying only one Schwab sign in per Quicken file. I have not found that to be true. Now, when I do the One-Step Update in Quicken, I have multiple entries for Schwab corresponding to number of User IDs I now use.

Chris_QPW

BigBill said:

I had read a posting saying only one Schwab sign in per Quicken file. I have not found that to be true. Now, when I do the One-Step Update in Quicken, I have multiple entries for Schwab corresponding to number of User IDs I now use.

That isn't what I have read (from @Quicken Anja ).   You can have multiple User IDs in one data file.  What you can't do is use the same User ID in multiple data files.  They are restricting the use of a given User ID to one data file.

mikey

@BigBil said:
"To set up Quicken transaction download where you do not have full control or full power of attorney, you need to contact the person who does and have them set up third-party access in their Schwab account."

Actually, Schwab has fixed this issue so folks like me who are authorized agent's for an account which is owned by an entity can now reauth, connect, & download. But you have to call Schwab support, this appears to be a system's backend workaround in the interim.